Chapter One: The Devil’s Ante Marseilles, 1928. The humid breeze off the Mediterranean did little to chase the stench of sweat and cheap perfume from the back room of Le Serpent Doré. Inside, shadows clung to the stained walls, punctuated only by the dull glow of a single green-shaded lamp hanging over a scarred poker table. Cigarette smoke curled like ghostly fingers toward the ceiling, and somewhere in the gloom, a cloc...

Bingly Ironhart was Manchester’s most enthusiastic ironmonger—enthusiasm measured, of course, by the number of squeaky hinges he polished before breakfast. Each morning, he burst through his shop doors at precisely 6:03 am (never 6:00, for dramatic flair), straightening rows of horseshoes like they were little silver soldiers. His apprentice, young Marmaduke, tip-toed in behind him, carrying a teetering stack of coil spri...

A Short Play in Three Scenes Setting: England, 1642–1643, in the early months of the Civil War. Dramatis Personae: • SIR THOMAS FAIRCHILD: A Royalist landowner, traditionalist, late 40s. • ELIZABETH FAIRCHILD: His daughter, sympathetic to Parliament, early 20s. • CAPTAIN RICHARD HALE: A Parliamentarian officer, idealistic, mid-30s. • SERGEANT JOHNS: A rank-and-file Parliament soldier, dutiful, late 20s. • LADY MARGARET: A...

Just an Old Country Boy Verse 1 I was raised where the red dirt roads, Wind through fields where the tall corn grows. Mama sang hymns on a Sunday morn’, Daddy worked the land ‘til his hands were worn. Chorus I’m just an old country boy, simple and free, Don’t need much money, don’t need much to be me. Give me a guitar, a porch, and the stars to enjoy— That’s the life of an old country boy. Verse 2 I learned young how to f...

The World’s End The last tree leaned into the wind, its branches skeletal, its leaves as brittle as old paper. Across the horizon, cities were winking out one by one, each extinguished light another heartbeat silenced. A child knelt in the dust, her palm pressed against the ground. She whispered to the soil as though it might whisper back, the way her grandmother once said the earth used to sing. But the ground was silent...

Chapter One: The Corner Jayden Reed hated standing still. At sixteen, his mind buzzed like the traffic outside his block of flats — restless, loud, impossible to switch off. School felt like a cage. Teachers droned about exams and futures, but all Jayden could see was the present: cracked pavements, graffiti-tagged walls, and the crew of older boys always holding court at the corner shop. Everyone in the neighborhood knew...

Chapter One – The Summons Sir Aldric of Highvale had fought in more wars than he cared to remember, but the summons from King Theodric was different. This was no border skirmish or bandit raid. The royal messenger’s words had chilled him: “A dragon has taken the king’s daughter.” Aldric rode through the crumbling gates of Eldraleth, the mountain valley where few dared to tread. The air smelled of ash. The sky, tinged with...

I still hear the roar of guns when I close my eyes—an endless thunder rolling over black volcanic sand. I’m Corporal Ira Hayes of the United States Marine Corps, a Pima Indian from Arizona, and what I’m about to tell you is etched in me sharper than any rifle scar. We hit Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. At first light, the beach looked like a nightmare—smoke choking the air, bodies half buried in ash, and cliffs bristling...

1. The First Voice Dr. Lena Rourke didn’t believe in ghosts, but there was something spectral about the new server cluster. Rows of black towers blinked with synchronized lights, as if they were breathing in a slow, mechanical rhythm. When she walked through the lab at night, she felt as if something unseen was watching her. The AI project—codename Eidolon—was funded by the Defence Ministry but built under the guise of an...

Prologue: The Calm Before the Storm October dawned cool and gray over the approaches to Cádiz. On the quarterdeck of HMS Victory, anchored off the Gulf of Cádiz, Admiral Horatio Nelson stood as if carved from bronze, cloak billowing, telescope in hand. Twenty miles to the south-west, the combined Franco-Spanish fleet under Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve lay at anchor off Cape Trafalgar, their great hulls creaking...

Chapter One: Max and His Marvelous Mouth Max Puddle was the best liar in Maplewood Primary. Not just an ordinary liar—the kind who says “I didn’t eat the last cookie” with crumbs on their chin. No, Max was a professional, world-class, gold-medal liar. His lies were so outrageous, so ridiculous, that people laughed instead of scolding him. One morning, when the teacher asked why his homework was missing, Max leaned back in...

Act I: Seeds of Unease Daniel Price lived by routines. He had to. It was the only way he felt the day wouldn’t scatter itself into pieces — one more shattered thing in a life that already seemed like a junk drawer of failures. He rose at 6:30 every morning in his Queens apartment, showered, dressed, and left at 7:15 sharp, walking three blocks to the subway station. The train rattled into Manhattan, delivering him to the...

A 1970s Rural British Police Station Comedy of Errors Sergeant Edith “Edie” Punter leaned back in her squeaky vinyl chair, surveying the chaos of papers strewn across Desk B. It was Tuesday—officially “Stationery Monday,” when every constable refilled ink pads, alphabetized incident logs, and polished the wooden counter until it gleamed like a newly minted badge. Instead, PC Nigel “Nige” Brinkworth was busy tossing file f...

The city of Marnica used to be alive with conversation — street poets, radio debates, satirical magazines, open-air philosophers. Now, only the wind and the algorithms dared speak without a filter. Once a beacon of progressive ideals, the Republic of Corvia prided itself on compassion, openness, and reinvention. Its leaders welcomed waves of migrants fleeing war and climate catastrophe. They dismantled old systems, promis...

In desert’s barren, scorching light, The Tempter came in shadowed might, To Christ alone, no fruit to yield, He stood as Eden’s fate revealed. The serpent’s hiss then echoed clear, In Eden’s garden, whispered near, To Eve and Adam’s fragile trust, The taste of sin would turn to dust. Christ faced the thirst, the hunger’s sting, While Satan’s words would promise kings, A kingdom vast if He would bow, Yet Christ refused the...